Burned out youngsters are taking a match to dating apps, hoping to find a flame the old-fashioned way.
Matchmaking services are seeing a surge of Gen Z singles signing up for their events after ditching digital dating options, such as Tinder and Hinge.
“Matchmaking in this country has never been more popular,” Adam Cohen-Aslatei, director of Tawkify matchmaking service, told The Post. “It’s really grown pretty tremendously.”
He said that “business has never been stronger” in their 12 years of matchmaking and the company had the busiest January they’d ever had this year.
Three Day Rule, another matchmaking company, told PopSugar that it’s had nearly 50 clients who are 27 or younger in the past year — around five times its usual annual roster of the same demographic.
And relationship coach Alexis Germany Fox shared that she’s seen a 35% increase in Gen Z clients post-2021 compared to pre-2021.
Amber Soletti, founder of Single and the City, a company that hosts speed-dating and singles events in cities across the US, also told The Post that they’ve seen a noticeable uptick in young attendees.
The romantics’ rush to matchmaking services comes as single swipers have increasingly been complaining of burnout and dating app fatigue.
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A study from Forbes Health found that 78% of respondents reported feeling fatigued by dating apps, especially those who’ve likely spent most of their dating life online. Gen Z (79%) and Millennials (80%) had the highest percentage of those reporting feelings of fatigue, compared to Gen X (77%) and Baby Boomers (70%), according to the study.
And it’s not just those out playing the field who think the game’s gotten too tough, most Americans believe young adults today face more challenges than their parents’ generation, especially when it comes to finding a spouse, according to the Pew Research Center.
While the wide array of dating apps would appear to help younger adults find their one and only, the endless possibilities of swiping right have made it more difficult for young adults to settle down.
“If you just go on date after date after date it feels like endless possibilities, but you’re actually more likely to burn out sooner because you’re just going on a bunch of random bad dates having negative experiences and wasting a lot of time and money,” Judith Gottesman, a matchmaker, dating coach and author, previously told The Post.
Most burnt-out singles claimed that ghosting (41%), not making a good connection (40%), being disappointed by people (35%) and feeling rejected (27%), were the main reasons why they’re over dating apps, according to Forbes Health.
Meanwhile, research from Tinder found that the majority of both men (53%) and women (68%) want a romantic relationship but are misjudging each other’s intentions and mistakenly assuming that their matches only want a casual fling.
People are so done with trying to figure people out through dating apps, that Bumble recently announced the possibility of having an “AI dating concierge” date for you. And while not everyone is ready to let AI pick their match, they are willing to let a human professional.
So to avoid the headache and heartache of the apps altogether, many Gen Z daters are simply logging off and turning to matchmaking services and events to find people who are transparent and serious about finding a love match.
And while Gen Z would rather pay someone to find them a date than do it themselves, it doesn’t mean they’re lazy — it actually means they’re taking it pretty seriously.
“Everybody wants to write off Gen Z as being so unserious about everything, but there are a lot of them who are seeking these real, more old-fashioned types of relationships,” Germany Fox told PopSugar.
Cohen-Aslatei echoed this sentiment, noting that it seems to be especially true for his female clientele.
“Women who come to the service are very serious about what they want,” he said. “Women are feeling much more comfortable in positions of power.”
American women today are outpacing men in graduating from college and buying homes, are out-earning men in several states and freezing their eggs to take the pressure off of rushing into parenthood.
Simply put, they don’t need a man for many of the traditional reasons women of previous generations might have rushed to find a partner or settled for someone. Instead, they’re more interested in finding a love connection instead of a match.
For young men, some are fighting back by ditching toxic masculinity, acknowledging that they want a serious relationship and being honest about what they want in a partner.
“People are investing much more in real relationships. Now when they’re ready [for love] they’re investing in it and they’re getting success much faster, through matchmaking,” Cohen-Aslatei said.
